Free Republic

Obama's Chilling Crew   By Andrew WaldenFrontPageMagazine.com | Tuesday, April 28, 2009 Why is there so little media investigation of the financing behind Barack Obama’s early political sponsor—and now convicted felon—Tony Rezko?      The dual US-Syrian citizen Rezko--who assisted Obama in the purchase of his Chicago mansion--was heavily funded by loans from Iraqi-British ex-Baathist billionaire Nadhmi Auchi.  According to testimony at Rezko’s trial, Obama met Auchi at an April 3, 2004 event at Rezko’s home during Obama’s 2004 US Senate campaign.  The Times of London reports discovering, “state documents in Illinois recording that Fintrade Services, a Panamanian company, lent...

A House committee held an important hearing Thursday morning on the issue of "libel tourism." That's the practice of bringing libel suits against American authors in other nations, particularly the United Kingdom, where First Amendment protections do not apply and where the burden of proof is placed on the defendant rather than on the plaintiff. Saudi Arabian businessman Khalid bin Mahfouz has brought several such lawsuits, winning a default judgment against American researcher Rachel Ehrenfeld for her book Funding Evil: How Terrorism Is Financed and How to Stop It, and forcing a Cambridge University Press to destroy copies of the...

Author and magazine editor Jed Babbin is very concerned about two cases being decided in foreign courts that he believes could have an adverse effect on First Amendment rights in the U.S. Jed Babbin, editor of Human Events, served as a deputy undersecretary of defense in President George H.W. Bush's administration. He explains that a Muslim with possible connections to terrorist funding is using a British court to sue Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld, an American author who wrote a book critical of Islam that sold in Britain on the Internet. And in Canada, a similar case has been brought against Mark...

Responding to last week’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Saudi Arabia’s role in the war on terror, entitled “Saudi Arabia: Friend or Foe in the War on Terror?”, Riyadh’s ambassador to the U.S., Prince Turki al-Faisal, charged the committee members with ignorance. "Judging by the statements made at the hearing, it appears that the members of the Committee are not fully aware of the significant steps Saudi Arabia has taken in the war on terrorism and extremism.” Worse, according to the prince, U.S. senators “chose to ignore the realities for the sake of political expediency.” Did they really? The U.S....